The 'Chronicle' on SF's Pizzeria Delfina (Pacific Heights)

A Margherita pie from the original Pizzeria Delfina location in the Mission District of San Francisco. Michael Bauer just dropped a review of the new Pacific Heights location.

The San Francisco Chronicle's food critic, Michael Bauer, visits the Pacific Heights offshoot of Pizzeria Delfina. (The original Pizzeria Delfina is in the Mission District, where it opened three years ago next door to its progenitor, Delfina.)

After my first visit, when I had the pizza with house-made fennel sausage ($15), I was ready to proclaim this version better than the original, but on another visit both pies - the Margherita with mozzarella di bufala ($13.75) and a special with grilled chicories and pancetta ($15) - were underdone so the centers were limp and gooey.

The crust was much better on the final visit, where we had the Napoletana ($10) with tomato, anchovies, hot peppers, capers, olives and oregano. It had a beautifully puffed edge, with blisters that ranged from pinpricks to the size of golf balls, slightly chewy with a hint of crispness.

The offshoot, he says, is just as popular as the original. And I can back up the popularity of the Mission one—we waited for quite some time before getting a table in the tiny space. The new one looks and sounds bigger, which is, perhaps, a good thing.

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About the Author

Adam Kuban is the founder of Slice, where he has been writing about pizza since October 10, 2003. He also founded A Hamburger Today, but burgers don't really do much for him these days. If you find Adam anywhere on SE these days, it's primarily in Talk and in the comments of Slice. He has taken an extended hiatus from his weekly pizza reviews and monthly Home Slice feature while he explores the actual work of pizza-making at Paulie Gee's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.